Seven Years

your shit; this game is over. I fucked one girl, big deal. I could have fucked a whole lot more if you want to know the truth. But you were always the one I wanted to come home to.”

My chest tightened and the heat made it difficult to breathe, as if I’d been running a marathon. Beckett had never behaved this way toward me and I was scared, but still unsure of his intentions. I thought I knew this man. He’d never once raised a hand to me or threatened my life if I left him. Those were the Lifetime movies I’d catch on the weekend and thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t with a psycho like that.

Beckett was barely lucid as his rough mouth moved across my jaw, whiskers scraping like sandpaper against my skin. His breath smelled of whiskey or something much stronger than the beers he usually preferred.

“Please,” I begged, pushing against his solid chest. “Just go home and sleep it off and I promise we’ll talk.”

But his lips began mashing against mine in another sloppy kiss and I turned my head again—my heart pounding wildly as he pressed even tighter against me.

“Stop,” I mumbled. I could feel my wolf pacing anxiously, but I shut her out because of fear.

Fear I would shift and lose control, and who knows what I’d do to him. My heart hammered against my chest so rapidly I could feel it in my throat.

“I can’t breathe, Beckett. Let’s not do this. We can sit down and talk it over,” I offered, trying to rationalize with him.

When he didn’t move, I got scared. Real scared. The kind of fear you only experience in moments when something is about to happen.

Something bad.

“You’re mine, Lex. Mine.” His hand slid up my shirt and gripped my side, short nails digging in deep.

“No, Beckett, stop!” I pushed against him and twisted the skin on his bicep.

His hand cupped the back of my neck and he stepped to the side. With brutal force, he threw me forward as hard as he could.

I flew across the dining table and shattered two vases, sending flowers and water all over the place.

“You like your flowers now, you bitch?”

A vase toppled onto the floor when I turned over. I was lying in a bed of soft rose petals and shards of glass, water soaking through the back of my shirt. Beckett yanked me by my hair and slammed my head against the table. Then he grabbed my ankles and tried to drag me to the floor. I kicked so wildly he stumbled backward when my foot struck him in the groin. I didn’t even think to scream; I was too busy fighting for my life.

I rolled off the table to run to the door when he swung me by the arm and I slammed against the corner of the wall. Pain sliced through my shoulder and I cried out.

The violence pouring out of him stunned me. Beckett seized my upper arms and shoved my back against the wall.

His voice broke when he kissed my cheek again. “You’re my girl, Lex. We go together. You put up with my shit, and I know we could have worked it out.”

Then he was crying against my face. Actual tears, and it made my legs tremble so fiercely that I came close to fainting.

Beckett had never once cried in my presence.

It wasn’t the kind of tears you shed for a love lost; it was a raw emotion I’d never seen in him before.

Ominous.

When his large hands wrapped around my throat and constricted my breathing, I suddenly knew why he was crying.

“Can’t breathe, stop,” I mouthed, trying to pull away and hit his arms. I was too weak—too dizzy. He squeezed harder and tightened his grip.

Then he let go and I gasped for sweet oxygen, falling to the floor.

“Why did you do this to us? We had a good thing and you go and date a piece of shit who gives you fucking roses! You think I couldn’t have given you roses? You never wanted me to buy you flowers!”

He scooped up a handful of stems from the floor and hurled them across the room. I coughed, still gasping for air, feeling like I might vomit. “No… please.”

An obtrusive noise filled my head, but I couldn’t be sure if it was my heart beating against my eardrums or something else.

Beckett fell over me and kissed my mouth so sweetly I almost didn’t realize his fingers were wrapped around my throat.

“You made me do this,” he whispered.

Something switched off in his eyes. The emotion evaporated, replaced by a vacant, soulless stare. I clawed at his face and the pounding at the door grew louder until I heard the crack of wood.

The last thing I saw was Austin Cole, standing in the doorway looking as handsome as ever. He’d never know how beautiful his eyes were to me—like glaciers on a cloudy day. His dark hair was wild and messed up, just the way I liked it.

But his expression was savage.

Bright flashes of light filled my vision and darkness closed in, but I knew the Grim Reaper would have nothing on the menace Austin carried in his pocket.

I let go of Beckett’s face and reached out to a beautiful black wolf with my trembling arms.

And then it went dark.

* * *

Austin approached the suspicious car in Lexi’s parking lot and confronted the sleeping man, ignoring his ringing phone. It was Reno’s ringtone—“Thunderstruck” by AC/DC.

That’s when he recognized one of Lorenzo’s men, probably sent to watch Lexi. Some fucking joke as the guy was asleep on the job. They got into a heated argument and Austin abruptly stepped back and looked around. Something felt off. The hairs on the back of his neck rose up and he looked toward Lexi’s apartment window.

Austin lifted his nose in the air—an alpha could pick up scents a regular wolf could not. It was nowhere near the capacity a Chitah had, but sometimes intense emotions bled into the air. Austin could taste the sting of adrenaline in the wind, blowing from the direction of her apartment.

The Shifter became a memory as Austin ran toward the stairwell. The closer he got, the more intense the feeling. Alarm ran up his spine and he leapt up three steps at a time.

That’s when he heard a man shouting from inside her apartment.

Naya peered out of her door with earbuds in her ears. “What’s going on?”

“Back inside!” he snapped, summoning all his alpha energy. Naya slammed the door and Austin turned the knob to Lexi’s apartment, but it was locked.

One singular word almost triggered him to shift involuntarily, but he had to maintain control of his wolf or he’d never get inside.

The word was “no.” Then he heard Lexi say another word that made his animal thirst for blood.

“Please.”

He turned around and back-kicked the door twice, but it wasn’t enough. He almost rammed it in with his shoulder but gave it another solid kick instead.

The door crashed in and the first thing he saw was red petals strewn all over the beige carpet. Then everything in his peripheral became fuzzy when he spotted Lexi lying on her back with the human on top of her, his hands squeezing her slender throat.

The throat he once tenderly caressed with his knuckles on the night Wes died. Austin had wanted to kiss Lexi at least once in his lifetime before he left town. He had dropped by to pick up Wes and when he found out he wasn’t there, Lexi followed him out to his car. Maybe it was the way the warm evening wind picked up a lock of her soft brown hair, or the gentle way that she laughed when he pinched her side to make her smile. Austin knew he might never see her again. He cupped her face with his large hands and tasted her lips for the first time. She barely kissed him back, but there was something between them that felt so right. Years went by and no kiss compared.